IDPs from Kyauktalone camp seek return to original places of residence

By Aung Htein 09 Jun 2020

Aung Htein | DMG
9 June, Kyaukphyu

Muslims sheltering at Kyauktalone IDP camp in Arakan State’s Kyaukphyu Township are asking to be resettled at their original places of residence; in doing so, they have rejected government arrangements to resettle at a site two furlongs away from the Kyauktalone camp.

U Ko Phyu Chay, chair of the IDP camp’s management committee, said at a June 6 press briefing that the place the government has selected for the IDPs’ relocation is not suitable for business or living because it is surrounded by salt water.

“It is impossible to stay in that area. It is not a place to do business. I’d like to invite the organisers who are forcing us to resettle there to stay with us for a week or a month,” he said.

Resettlement to a remote area like the one proposed is also isolating for IDPs and reinforces perceptions of them as a separate community, he added.

Rights to quality education, medical care and sustainable livelihoods are denied under IDPs’ present circumstances and could be exacerbated by a poorly thought out relocation plan, an IDP at the Kyauktalone camp said.

“Children in the camp are losing all their rights. There was not a single student who passed high school here. We have no business or money. Some children have died due to lack of access to medical treatment,” she said.

More than 1,000 people from 363 households of Ayarshi, Paik The, Taman Chaung and Pyin Phyu Maw wards in Kyaukphyu town were displaced to the Kyauktalone IDP camp in the aftermath of the intercommunal conflict that wracked Arakan State in 2012.

The government plans to spend more than K2 billion (US$1.38 million) to resettle the refugees from Kyauktalone IDP camp.

The proposed relocation site for the IDPs is on 9.3 acres of land that were relinquished by the Tatmadaw after it confiscated the plot in 1993. The current government did not return the farmland to the 12 original claimants, nor was any compensation paid for it, the former landowners say.

U Than Htut Oo, the administrator of Kyaukphyu district, said the government has already calculated the value of the land in order to provide compensation to the original land holders.